Summer 2026

tagged out. Well, what to do? No third season tags left in camp so I guess we are done hunting. Fishing? The Turkey river was too high to get to the trout so that was out. We elected just to sit on the cabin porch to relax and enjoy the beautiful spring afternoon. Afternoon turned to evening and evening means it’s time to play the game I love to hate. If golf is a way to ruin a perfectly good walk then euchre is the best way to ruin a perfectly good evening. My Personal Guide, his Assistant and the Assistants Protégée drew lots, the loser was to be my partner. The Assistant drew the black spot. Doomed to an evening of frustration and losing he opened one of his last cans of his favorite Canadian beer saved from last year’s trip up north. Now I’m not saying there was any magic in that particular can of Canadian beer but as soon as the sound of it opening faded away there was a feeling in the air, almost as if some sort of supernatural presence had been released and was with us in the cabin. The first game went as usual, the Assistant and I lost big time. The Assistant then opened his second to last can of his favorite Canadian beer and it seemed to double that supernatural feeling. We started the second game, and through no fault of the Assistant we lost the first four hands. I believe the score was 20 for them and 12 in the hole for us. The Assistant stood up, went out to the porch where his cooler was and came back in with what he said was the absolute last can of his favorite Canadian beer, but this was a “silo” beer, a 24 ounce behemoth that would allow the Assistant to play cards with me as his partner while making it barely tolerable. If the first two cans made it feel like there was a supernatural being in the cabin this one made it feel like all the bearwalks, banshees, windigos, chupacabras, skinwalkers and slaughs were inside with us. It was the weirdest feeling I have ever had. Everybody was feeling the presence, nervous glances were exchanged. The wind kicked up and it seemed to say “Bonker, deal the cards”. Who am I to deny a potential deity’s order? I picked up the cards and dealt them. The first

bidder passed, the second bidder, my partner, bid a “shooter in hearts” the third bidder passed and I thought hard about going double shooter in hearts but I don’t think that’s a legal bid so I just looked at my nine of hearts and hoped he had the other six trump cards so I couldn’t misplay trump yet again. The Assistant simply laid all six of his cards on the table, all trump, I showed them my nine, also a trump. It was at that exact moment we all knew there was something, some other worldly thing in control of the cards. That shooter hand had us back to even from a 12 point deficit. Three hands later, after all of us had dealt a hand and all of them had been shooters to my partner and all of them had been hearts as trump. We were certain that some other worldly being had been in charge of the cards and that other worldly being had come from the Assistant’s last three cans of his favorite Canadian beer. As suddenly as it had come up, the wind died down, and as one we rose to heed the call of nature. As I finished I looked up and saw a large white rabbit walking upright into the woods. I shook my head and looked again, but it was gone. We all went back inside and sat at the table. They all looked as if they had seen a ghost. I asked “Did anyone else happen to see a giant white rabbit?” Heads nodded yes, “and was he walking upright into the woods?” Again, they all nodded yes. The Assistant’s favorite Canadian beer is Old Style Pilsner, not the same as Heileman’s Old Style from La Crosse. This Old Style Pilsner is actually drinkable. The Old Style Pilsner can actually has a large white rabbit on it and is sometimes referred to as “White Rabbit” beer. I bet you are all thinking I’m ripping off Lewis Carrol’s 1865 book Alice in Wonderland or Grace Slick’s 1966 song White Rabbit and you would be wrong. Their premise was Alice and Grace ate and/ or drank unknown substances and imagined, some would say hallucinated, what they saw. My premise is the magic was inside the can and it was let out by opening it, not consuming its contents. continued on page 10

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